Her Story, His Story
by VictorianChik
Summary: Long diary entries that tell Asuna's and Negi's relationship as friends and enemies. Humorous, sweet, and often wistful, these chapters show the inner works of the characters and the way they learn to cope with life and each other.


AN: All right, I just read this manga called _Negima_! and I really liked it. For you who are not familiar with the manga but enjoy reading my writing, I'll give a very brief explanation of the story. It about a ten-year-old genius names Negi who graduates from a magical school gets sent to teach an all-girls school in Japan. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's a really cute story. He makes a friend/enemy in a girl named Asuna who both bullies and takes care of him in the early days of his teaching. The things she does in my story are actually things done in the manga books, but I wanted to take a deeper look into her character so I wrote this fanfic.

For those of you who have read all the books, you should know I have only read the first two books and I'm basing my story on what I have read so far. Please do not spoil me and tell me that this character dies or another character leaves. Eventually I will have the time and money to buy all the volumes, but for now I write on what I know. I still am not sure about the endings to name: -_kun, -chan, -san_, that designate affection or respect, so I will not use them until I know them better otherwise I'll screw them all up.

This chapter is supposed to be written in Japanese as the speaker is Japanese, but of course it's in English so I can write it and you can read it. But that way you'll understand when she talked about translating into English.

Disclaimer: I own nothing here.

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This is a project I have to do for class – write about a day in my life and then translate it into English – and it has been hanging over my head for weeks. Our respected teacher, that ten-year-old pipsqueak from England, keeps asking for our translations. He's so small, no one in class really pays any attention to him. They all drone "Yes, Negi," and ignore him. I feel like I'm the only one who makes the class behave.

Really, it's pathetic. He gets up on that stool to reach the board, and he looks lost in the classroom. All the girls would treat the class like a study period or simply free time except that I make them do the work, threatening to go to the other teachers if they don't participate.

But I'll begin this paper correctly. I am Asuna Kagurazaka, a young teenage girl, who lives at Mahora Academy. My parents have both died, and though I don't consider myself a charity pupil, I am almost that. However, I pay what I can from a delivery job in the mornings, and I don't let anyone get away with treating me like a charity case.

All was well – I was working very hard at my job and getting satisfactory marks in school beside drooling over Takamichi Takahata, our very, very handsome teacher, such a dream – and then the little runt showed up. Interestingly enough, this same runt will be the one grading my translation, but I do not care because he told us in class the content did not matter, just our translation. Therefore, I will write what I want, and the little wimp can just sit on it.

I really do not understand how he came to be our teacher. He's too little, too young, helpless, completely useless in anything other than language and this magic he thinks he knows. He carries around that annoying stick and wears those tiny glasses which keep falling off. He's supposed to be a genius, but here in this academy, an all-girls school, he can never blend in with the rest of us.

Perhaps the worst thing about him that he sleeps in my dorm room because they told him there was no extra room for him. Now, a normal teacher would not have stood for that kind of treatment. A normal teacher, an adult teacher, would have demanded his own room or shared with a staff member, but Negi just stood there and nodded along with whatever they told him. Then he moved in with Konoka and me. Our room is big enough for three people. There is a bunk bed that Konoka and I share, two desks with chairs, and sofa that Negi should sleep on. But does he? Well, you can see for yourself. Here's example of a typical day.

It was a little after three in morning when something woke me up. I sleep on the top bunk, and I rolled over to see Negi climbing up into my bunk. I considered kicking him in the chest as he came up the ladder. It would knock him off, and later I could always claim that I was moving around in my sleep.

But I did not kick him, and he crawled under the covers with me, settling down on the pillow beside me and sighing with contentment. Any other boy I would call perverted for getting into my bed, but I knew that Negi was scared of the dark, even though he would never admit it.

Our room can get very dark, and Konoka cannot sleep with a light on. Negi insists on being on the sofa under the covers before we turn the light off. I can see the top half of his head, the covers pulled up to his nose with his big eyes blinking over the top, right before the room goes black. He usually goes to sleep quickly, but sometimes he has bad dreams, probably from watching something scary on the television, and he wakes during the night.

This is not the first time he has gotten into bed with me. He had an older sister somewhere and I guess she used to let him sleep with her when he had nightmares. I know he misses her, but I do not see why I have to play the role of the older, comforting sister when I would like to kick him out of this room and this academy.

He shifted on the bed, his breathing not quite as deep as it should be for him to fall asleep. He probably wanted someone to talk to, to tell what woke him. I was not about to start a conversation, here in the middle of the night. But I could almost feel the anxiety in his little body, the way he kept shifting his shoulders. I thought about swatting him – that usually helps straighten him out.

But I did not. I put my hand at the small of his back.

He stiffened. His sides are horribly ticklish, and he knows that I know that.

I slid my hand up under his pajama top until I felt the bare skin of his back. His heart was hammering through his body – he must have had a very bad nightmare. I made my hand into a fist and began rubbing it in circles, pressing the heel of my hand and my knuckles into his back.

As always, anytime I did this, he relaxed immediately. He made a little noise, almost like a cat purring.

"Hush," I told him. "Settle down and sleep or I'm pushing you back to the sofa."

"All right," he whispered as he snuggled down into the bed.

I rolled my eyes, but of course he could not see me in the dark even if he were looking at me. I rubbed for a while – long, round circles on his back as I heard his breathing deepen. Satisfied he was asleep, I moved closer to him, wrapping one arm around his waist to hold him close to me.

Negi would never admit it either, but this is his favorite sleeping position, both of us on our sides with my arm around him. If I would let him, he would probably sleep every night in my bed. I see the wistful look in his eyes almost every night when he comes into our room, dressed in pajamas too big for him. But I point to the sofa and he climbs into with a sigh.

All too soon I heard my alarm go off, jarring me out a sound sleep. I reached across Negi and hit the off button. He squirmed, but I pulled away from him and climbed down the ladder.

"Have a good day," Konoka whispered to me from the darkness of her lower bunk.

"Make sure he eats something," I whispered as I reached for my clothes. "Yesterday he skipped breakfast and was tired and cranky by noon. He nearly burst into tears by afternoon."

"Did not," Negi protested softly from my bunk.

"Quiet," I told him. "Go back to sleep."

"Let me come with you," he asked. "I can help you deliver the papers."

He often asked to come, but I refused. He would only get in the way, slow me down, and he could get another two hours of sleep if he stayed in bed.

"Back to sleep," I told him. "I'll see you in class. Remember your papers."

I slipped out of the room and hurried down the dim hall. Outside, the world was still dark and quiet. I loved moments like these when I could feel alone and quiet. I didn't have to fight with the other girls or worry about Negi or show up other students. Out here, it was just me and the sky and a world rustling with a gentle wind.

Delivering paper is a job without much challenge or variation. I could have slept for another half hour and still finished on time, but I preferred to wake early and get the job done with plenty of time to make sure I'm not late for class. I am not sure what I want to be when I finish school, but I want to make my school is as near perfect as it can be. Oh, I have various fights on my record, but I've pulled my grades up. Negi helps me study sometimes, which is one of the reasons I will keep him around for while.

I did not see him until English class later that morning. He looked tired and confused, like he usually did, surrounded by a sea of girls, but he brightened when he saw me.

"Let's start," he said, picking up a piece of chalk.

I felt a twinge of annoyance, but I pushed it down. Negi had to use chalk if he wanted to write anything on the board, but it got all over his hands and clothes and eventually his hair when he tried to push back his bangs. His hair was too long, but he protested every time I got near him with a pair of scissors. He still wore that ridiculous short ponytail at the back. His hair barely stuck an inch past the hairband, and while it would have looked hot on a guy of seventeen, on him it looked like a 10-year-boy whose mother did not have time to give him a haircut.

As for teaching, how good do you expect a kid to be? His voice squeaked when he got excited, and he usually stood on his tiptoes to talk to the class, as if that made him so much taller. When the girls giggled, which they did all the time, his little cheeks would turn pink and his voice would go up a little higher as he tried to win their attention and respect.

"Silly boy," I heard Kaede mutter under her voice. She reached under her desk to crumple a piece of paper to throw at him, but I slammed my pencil down on the table.

Negi jumped, but I looked straight at Kaede, giving her a _"Don't even think about it"_ look. She sighed, but pulled her empty hands up on her desk. However, Negi kept looking at me, confused by the interruption.

"Sorry," I said simply. "I don't understand that last part about English verbs. What is _irregular_ again?"

An almost-hurt look appeared on Negi's face – he always wanted me to be his best student – but he went on to explain it again.

At lunchtime, he was looking very tired and slumped down in his seat in front of his lunch. There was a teachers' table, but Negi preferred to sit by me and sometimes Konoka. His lunch was a spread of rice, beef, and greens. He ate some of the rice and beef, but he only poked his fork at the greens.

I frowned. He had an English deposition towards green food, meaning that he hated it. He would eat bread and meat for the rest of his life if he could, but I tapped on the table and nodded to the remaining.

"I'm full," he said, a touch of a whine in his voice.

"Eat it all," I told him flatly. "And no grabbing sweets from the teachers' lounge."

He had a love for the flat, sugary candy stored there in the large tins. Many days I would grab his hand to drag him to supper and find, to my horror, his hand coated with sugary grime, usually when he had eaten candy and then tried to lick his hand clean.

I tried not to smile as I remembered that I planned to give him a bath that afternoon, and a very thorough scrubbing at that. He had no idea as he sat there, picking at greens and making a face as he chewed them, what I planned to do. He never did. For all his genius brain and magic, he never caught on that I planned bath time for him every third day. He could have used one every other day, but I didn't have the time that often.

Our bathing hall is huge, easily fitting over a 100 people, and it looks like a mixture of a swimming pool, spa, and hot springs with plenty of soap, rags, and towels. I love it in there, but as I shower everyday, I can get in and out fairly quickly. Negi could bath quickly, I bet, but that would be because he would jump in the main pool and jump out, deciding he was clean enough.

To walk back to our dorm room, we have to pass the main doors to the bathing hall, and on bath day, I usually do the same thing: I walk along without saying anything, but once we reach the door, I grab him by the collar and pull him to the doors. He fights me, but I'm taller and stronger than he is and I've never failed to get him in there and to wash him properly.

Today was no different. He was walking down the hall, prattling about how much better I was doing in English, how I was really understanding the language, and how happy he was for me when I pounced. Swift as a cat, I grabbed the back of his collar and began to pull him towards the closed doors.

"Asuna!" he wailed. "No, I just had one!"

"And you need another," I replied. "Stop fussing or someone will hear you."

We went inside and I pulled him behind our usual screen, tucked against one corner. After the first time I had washed him, I went to Konoka's grandfather, who was the Dean, and I told him what I needed. He seemed so relieved someone was looking after Negi that he agreed to everything I wanted.

Girls come in and out of the bath hall all day, and Negi had protested so loud and long that he would not bathe with girls, that I finally set upon the idea of having a screen to give him some privacy. Privacy from the other girls – not from me.

I marched him behind the screen and started yanking open the buttons to his silly coat.

"I can do it," he argued, but he never tried to push away my hands.

"I do not have long," I told him. "I have my science class in an hour."

Once I had his clothes stripped off, I thrust a towel at him. "Go ahead," I instructed.

He tucked the towel around him and peered around the screen cautiously. He was supposed to go to the main tub and dip in the main pool to get wet. Then he had to come back to the privacy of the screen for me to scrub him and wash his hair. The first few times he had tried to run from me, scrambling across the bathing hall in just his towel. We are not supposed to run in the hall (we could slip and fall on the cement), but I let him run all he wanted. He could not leave without his clothes, and I had his clothes. Eventually, he came back to me, whining a little, but doing what I wanted.

As he edged to the water, I stripped off my clothes, baring my swimsuit to the warm air. My long reddish hair was already in two ponytails that I flipped over my shoulders as I grabbed a wash rag and a bar of soap. I knelt by one of the fountain that streamed hot water and I took a round pail to fill with the water.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Negi clutching his towel and reaching one foot over the pool to dip his toes into the water.

"Negi!" I hollered.

"Aaee!" he squealed, nearly tumbling into the water.

"You get in there, or I'll throw you in." It was not an idle threat as I had done it before.

Negi reluctantly stepped down the stairs into the water with the towel still around him.

A few seconds later he came back, all wet with the soaking towel around him. Without being told, he sat down on the low wooden stool, put his hands on the wet towel, and sighed. He always looked so dejected at moments like this, as if the world had become too unbearably cruel. I paid him no mind as I soaped up the wash rag and began to scrub his shoulders.

I wash him everywhere except his privates. He is ten, after all, and he should be responsible for scrubbing there. It's his hair he has the most trouble with, anyway. After washing his torso and limbs, I set to cleaning his hair. "Look up at the ceiling," I directed.

That was the easiest way to keep the soap out of his eyes, have him stare up at the ceiling. He complained that his neck hurt, but he would holler much more if the shampoo ran down his forehead and burned his brown eyes.

"Come on," he urged. "I'm clean enough. Let me go rinse."

"Hush, you brat," I ordered, dumping the pail of water over his head. Negi sputtered as the water ran down his face.

"I told you to look up," I began lathering his hair again.

Ten minutes later we sat at the edge of one of the hot tubs that could have fit twenty people. He was in the large sauna, sitting on the cement seat, churning hot water up to his shoulder. I sat cross-legged on the ground and began combing his wet hair back while he steamed in the water.

With a small wooden comb, I brushed back his soft hair from his forehead, preparing to put it in a new hairband. He leaned his head back, the wet strands tickling my crossed shins, enjoying the feeling of the comb. I never yank it through his hair, and I knew he endured the whole bathing process just so I could brush his hair at the end.

The stupid little boy was going to be nothing but trouble when he got older. Already, he was almost a slave to his body, reacting like a purring cat or squirmy puppy whenever anyone hugged him, patted him, pinched his cheeks, even squeezed his arm. I could not imagine what he would be like as a teenager with hormones running wild. Or (awful thought) when he got older and found out about sex.

To punish him for the cad he would be seven years from now, I tugged sharply on his ear.

"Ow, Asuna," he protested. "That hurt."

"Stop being such a bother," I told him. "Now that you're all clean, go get changed into new clothes."

I helped him out of the sauna and went to get a robe for him. Most girls brought fresh clothes to change into in the dressing room, but I never brought clothes for Negi. For one thing, it would have tipped him off that he was about to get scrubbed. For another, he was too cute running down in the hall in just a robe and slippers, hoping no one would see him before he got to his room and changed.

"There," I pulled the robe tight around him. "Now, what do you say?"

He looked up at me with some resentment and just a touch of affection. "Thank you, Asuna."

"Go," I gave him a light smack on the bottom to get him moving. He dashed towards the door, his wet ponytail wobbling as he ran.

The water felt good to me as I washed, and I changed into extra clothes in the changing rooms. Several of my friends were there, and we chatted lightly as we dressed. They were always amused by Negi's attempts to get out of a bath, smiling and _aawww_ing over his cute antics.

I did not expect to see Negi until supper, and when he was not at the dining hall I grew concerned. He is a magician, after all, and he's always finding trouble with that staff of his and his potions and his spells. Sometimes, I wish I could shake the magic out of him, especially when he puts himself in danger. Usually he does it to save someone else, but I hate the fear that runs through me when I see him about to be hurt.

Completely worried, I rushed to our dorm room, deciding to start there in my search for the ten-year-old brat. I drew a sigh of relief when I saw him in of the chairs, but I felt concerned when I realized he was slumping in the seat with a dazed look.

"Negi?" I asked.

He turned towards me with big eyes. "Asuna," he croaked, "I – I don't feel good."

I went to him immediately and felt his forehead. It was very hot.

"You are burning up," I scolded. "What happened?"

"Nothing," he protested. "I came back and changed. Then I went outside –"

"With wet hair?"

He looked away. "It was just a little wet."

I resisted the urge to smack him. "And were you running around in the wind without your coat?"

"Japan is warmer than England," Negi objected. "It doesn't feel cold outside."

"But it is," I began rummaging through a desk drawer. "You know better than to run around without a coat, especially after a bath."

He looked at me accusingly, but I kept searching until I found the glass thermometer. I put into his mouth and went to get his pajamas.

In a few minutes, I had Negi in his red and black pajamas, on the sofa piled with pillows, thermometer still in his mouth. I took it out and frowned at the high reading. I thought about sending him to the infirmary, but he hated going there and I knew the nurse would make him stay the night all by himself.

I found a large bottle of medicine in the drawer – Konoka's aunt had given it to her to take to ward off a cold. I poured a large dose into a spoon and held it out to him.

He pouted, but leaned forward to swallow the dose.

"Ugh," he made a face. "It's awful."

"I know," I replaced the cork into the bottle. "Now you stay there and rest. I'll go get you some soup and tea.

Konoka came in an hour later and immediately began to gush and baby Negi, but I stopped her.

"It's his own fault he got sick," I told her. "Next time he should do what I tell him."

"Oh, do not be so cruel," Konoka sat down on the bed and wrapped his arms around Negi. "Look how sad he looked. My poor little Negi, sick here with mean Asuna to boss you around. Aww, you look just like a baby, so small and scared."

She proceeded to coo baby talk to the boy who was supposed to be our teacher. I wanted to leave him there at her mercy, but I am not completely heartless.

"Stop gushing," I told her. "We have homework, and he needs to rest."

We all spent the two hours reading quietly, Negi looking over a magic manuscript with Konoka and I poured over our science book. When the clock reached nine, I closed my books. One of the rules I made when Negi moved in was that we never went to sleep later than ten. I turned the lights off at nine-thirty, and Konoka had to go somewhere else if she wanted to stay up and study. I do not need that much sleep, but Negi is still growing. He starts yawning by nine, anyway, and falls asleep almost at once.

I could tell he did not want the lights off yet. I bent down to feel his forehead. It was still warm, but not as hot as it has been.

"All right," I pulled the cover off him, "go clean your teeth and then climb up the ladder. I want you in bed in ten minutes.

Realizing he would get to sleep with me in my bunk, he tottered off to the bathroom. He soon came back in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes with one small fist. Our roommate had gone to meet with some friends so I had Negi all to myself.

After changing, I turned off the lights and climbed up the ladder and got in my bunk. Negi had pulled himself against the wooden slats to give me room, but once I laid down, he squirmed his body back toward me, clearly wanting some petting before going to sleep. I considered ignoring him, just wrapping myself in my covers and letting him shiver.

But of course, I covered him up, too, and began to pet his soft hair. He smelled like the soap I had used earlier, and though he protested it made him smell like a girl, his scent was fresh and clean. He seemed so small in my bed, so little and alone. I kept running my strong fingers over his hair as he relaxed.

He still felt warm, and I felt extremely cross with him for getting sick. He has absolutely no sense, silly child. I leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on the side of his neck. It was a ticklish area, and he hunched his shoulders and squirmed down in the covers.

"Settle down," I ordered, putting a warning hand on his side. I am horribly cruel with him sometimes. If I let him sleep in my bed, I often tickle him mercilessly right before bedtime. He laughs and squeals and begs Konoka to help him, and once I stop, he looks at me with big reproachful eyes, but he never climbs out of my bunk.

I am glad he's miserable. He should not be here, he took the place of the teacher I wanted to stay and teach us, he is nothing but an annoying, bothersome, pathetic, little -

Negi coughed, his whole body shaking with effort.

"Shh," I soothed him. "You need to sleep."

He edged near me, sighing when I tightened my hand around his waist.

All was quiet and peaceful, and then –

"I love you, Asuna," he whispered.

Silence . . . and then I replied, "I know."

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Well, this was my day, but now that I am finished, I am not translating all this into English. I will make up some silly diary entry and translate that. These pages will be put in my notebook and hidden. There is no reason for him to see all this for he would either get upset or (worse) think I really cared about him.

And so I end this paper.

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AN: I hope you enjoyed this story. The next chapter will be Negi's response to her day and his account of what really happened.


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